Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Power of God - thrust into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

About Me

Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday, 15 August 2015

The Paper of Record

It should be obvious that all the kvetching I do about the New York Times is proof of all the reading I do in the New York Times, so that yes, I do depend on it a lot, it is of authentic vlaue to me.

That is not to deny that it can be advocacy journalism at its very worst. (Of course its funniest moments are when its writers are trying desperately to be both advocates/partisans and news providers/truth tellers and the two role are irreconcilably in conflict with each other and it is obvious to everyone but them.)

Anyway, am I the only one who boggled at its Op-ed page's offering a platform to a struggling worker alerting the Times readership to the oppression of the capitalists under whom she struggles?

Oh, wait I misspoke, she and her sisters are not under anyone, they're kinda on top of them, you know - because they are giving lap dances.

And I was also somewhat taken aback by the diction of the front page piece about the AirBnB user assaulted by his hostess who, I think they put it, was "born male" but "lives as a woman."

PC to the last, the Times insisted on using feminine pronouns for the rapist, despite his obviously having male genitalia, and said rapist's contention that his victim was cool with everything until buyer's remorse set in over their "consensual" sex, because, you know the victim was prejudiced against "women" with penes. (Yeah, I did it, I used those scare quotes...)

Oh, those transphobic travellers, they make things so difficult for the real victims.

(Has the Times in the past had sympathy for parents who don't think boys pretending to be girls using the girls' restroom is fair to actual girls? or for women complaining about men who dress as women using the women's locker rooms at gyms? Why, no. No, they haven't. Because, well, you know... "the real victims here.")